After watching the Mighty Oilers beat the Pens in an impressive fashion some of us find ourselves wondering if that level of compete and compelling victory are a one time aberration or a sign of things to come. It was a grand time on Friday night, with rarely seen "hooting" "hollering" and "legitimate excitement" felt by many Oilers fans.

The team that came back in the third period was an entirely different squadron than we have seen on many a night and they need to be seen more often. And quick.

CALLING MARKET BOTTOM

The Oilers are a business and any business is subject to cycles. The Oil spectacularly peaked early on in the NHL and it seems as though Oilers fans have paid for every championship calibre game in the 80s with an equal period of terribility in the 10s. The Oil have since averaged out early market dominating performance with a trough so long you can see it from space. But this is where you have to look at the long game. You see? The Oilers aren't so bad when you look at them on a long enough time horizon. You just need to take an average of the last 500 years!

(gunshot)

If you look at the Oilers as a business it's staggering to think that the Oilers have easily spent over $400 million on salaries since they last made the playoffs and haven't seen a second of post season action for their buck. That's an eye popping sum that Kay-Z has sent out the door and with nothing coming back in return. Brutal.

But as is the case with any stock, good money is made by calling a market bottom. That's the time the savvy investor takes a look at the fundamentals of the business and decides if the worst is behind the company and brighter days lay ahead. Has the market changed? Has the business made significant changes? Are there new key executives involved who understand the issues they face and have a plan to turn things around?

Even the most pissed off Oilers fan will grudgingly admit the Oilers are a much better team than they were anywhere between 2007-11. And though recent changes to Coach and GM have frustratingly yet to bear fruit it is way too soon to call for the heads of Eakins and MacT. We actually like where Mac T's head these days, having read a mile long interview with him this afternoon.

As Robin Brownlee pointed out, David Staples has a massive 4 part interview with MacT over at the Edmonton Journal that is one of the better Oilers pieces we can recall for awhile. For someone trying to gauge if the Oilers are anywhere near coming off market bottom we offer the words of the man charged with turning the business around:

"When I took over my one mandate was to turn this team over to the guys who are ultimately going to lead us out of this, and that was largely the draft choices, Taylor, Nugent-Hopkins, Eberle, and put them in very prominent positions. No hiding them in the match-ups. Turning them loose to the toughest match ups. And at the start of this year, that didn’t go well. It went poorly. But I believe strongly failure is a great motivator. I think that those failures really helped those players try and restructure their game and the way they think the game and some of the decision making that they make during a game."

Bear in mind that the title of the article itself quotes MacT saying "I'm not arguing that were close were not" but if you read the entire interview it's immediately clear that MacT is infinitely more on the ball than our dear Tambellini ever was and he seems to understand the issues crippling his business even if he has yet to do anything significant to address them. As an MBA grad one would hope he applies all that book learnin and starts making some moves soon.

It may not be market bottom for the Oilers yet - but a few more confidence building wins like the one against the Penguins and it may be closer than it feels most days.

GAME DAY

And so flush with the temporary confidence that comes from beating the Penguins the Oilers face off with the Chicago Blackhawks today in Chicago. How good are the Hawks? Very. How good are the Oil? Somewhere between terrible and brutal. But the Pens are on a 7-2-1 streak in their past 10 and the Oil can pat themselves on the back for providing half of those losses.

Believe it or not the Oilers are 4-2-1 in last 7 trips to Chicago. A win tonight would be their third win in their last 4 games all against the top 9 teams in the NHL. Hmm. You never know.

OILERS LINES

The Oilers have yet to tweet their lineups but as of 2:50 PM the lines are as follows according to DailyFaceOff.com. Please shoot any updates into the comments as they are released and keep us all on top of the very latest.

HAWKS LINES

The Hawks have also yet to finalize their lines as of press time but the latest combinations are presented here.

PREDICTIONS

GAME DAY PREDICTION: Oh what the hell. The Oilers win 4-3, causing hundreds of thousands of Oilers fans petitioning the United Nations for Kevin Lowe's resignation to stop their protest for a brief moment in celebration before resuming their cause in earnest.

OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Jordan Eberle scores 2 goals and hundreds of new Oilers fans are born exactly 9 months from today as a result of worldwide jubilation immediately after the game.

NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Fresh off a 2 goal game, The Nuge has a 3 point night. Although he has had one hell of a weekend he still reports to Grade 1 classes on Monday morning like every other student in his class. Full of youthful energy and wonder and delicious victory pie.

What's not to like about MacT? Tambo sure wouldn't get into an arguement with a fan. He'd still be sitting in the pressbox mulling over the upside of heading downstairs...can't rush these decisions you know...

1. How does Gagner get the second most ice time among the forwards? Why does a coach want such a liability on the ice that much?

2. Why can't the Edmonton media throw some difficult questions at the Oilers Coaching and Management? How would the Montreal media be with the Canadiens if they were this terrible? Can Edmonton and Montreal switch media personnel for a few weeks? I think it would be very interesting, even if I could only understand half of them.

1 - I never read/listen to negativity re the Oilers
2 - So that eliminates Robin Brownlee, Edmonton Sun and David Staples' articles
3 - I adore my team, have done for 25 years since I came to Canada
4 - In another life I'd have been married to MacT
5 - In this life I am extremely happily married and I am an eternal optimist re my Oilers
6 - And tonight? Sam will break out - again - and we will win
7 - Oh - did I mention I am an eternal optimist?

You are exactly the type of fan Katz and Lowe love. Blind and without a spine

I realize Taylor "The Franchise" Hall scored but man, oh man, the BlackHawks are making the Oilers look like a AA squad out there. It just shows the difference between the East and West. Poor Oilers are stuck in the wrong conference!!

Hey... we always seem to see the other team's backup goalies... has anyone actually checked this out and how it compares to other teams. Seems a little disrespectful but I don't blame them.

How is this disrespectful? We are a disgrace and shouldn't expect anything more. We are a great opportunity to rest a starter. We are a minor league league team, coached by a minor leaguer, run by inexperience. How can an owner let his $400 million franchise be run by such fools? Because we've accepted it. Edmonton..."City of Mediocrity".

"If you look at the Oilers as a business it's staggering to think that the Oilers have easily spent over $400 million on salaries since they last made the playoffs and haven't seen a second of post season action for their buck. That's an eye popping sum that Kay-Z has sent out the door and with nothing coming back in return. Brutal."

What if I told you the franchise value of the Oilers has tripled since Katz took over?

Seems to me that Eakins said a few weeks ago that he needs to stick to his plans when it comes to who the starting goalie should be. And he displayed why tonight. Dubnyk was awful and I cant wait for him to be somewhere else other than in an Oilers jersey.

Hey Kevin Lowe haters, how about giving the guy a little credit for still trying!! I mean lets say you were trying to learn how to ride a bike, and for 8 years you just keep falling everytime you try. would you even bother anymore?? Sure he might be completely incapable, but atleast he's still trying right?

I fully realize we lose this game no matter what, but the refs sure were looking like they had big money on the Hawks.

I thought Hemsky looked good; not much else though.
Team was fighting the puck all night, could never make one nice pass.
Like someone mentioned above, the play was dying consistently on Gagner's stick.

Shift after shift the play dies with gags. "Hall to Gags and he turns it over, Gags passes to Hall 2 feet behind him and a foot off the ice". I thought management was trying to showcase Gags..not working. But all in all not a bad road period for the Oil.

Hey Kevin Lowe haters, how about giving the guy a little credit for still trying!! I mean lets say you were trying to learn how to ride a bike, and for 8 years you just keep falling everytime you try. would you even bother anymore?? Sure he might be completely incapable, but atleast he's still trying right?

Name me one person who gets paid millions of dollars to try to learn how to ride a bike. Your argument is extremely week.

1 - I never read/listen to negativity re the Oilers
2 - So that eliminates Robin Brownlee, Edmonton Sun and David Staples' articles
3 - I adore my team, have done for 25 years since I came to Canada
4 - In another life I'd have been married to MacT
5 - In this life I am extremely happily married and I am an eternal optimist re my Oilers
6 - And tonight? Sam will break out - again - and we will win
7 - Oh - did I mention I am an eternal optimist?

And tonight? Sam will break out - again - and we will win 7 - Oh - did I mention I am an eternal optimist?

You were right he did break out, only -3, put this liability on the 4th line or the press box.

Im curious, if the Oilers win tonight and leap frog the Lames, and actually stay ahead of them for the remainder of the season and the Oilers miss out on Ekblad, will fans still call for Lowe and MacT to get $hit canned?

Oh well ,at least they beat the Penguins on Friday .Have to love it when some of the media said after the win Friday it was a turning pointe for the team,it was only one win !!!! And tonight it was welcome back to reality for the team and fans. It's the same old story with this team.

They beat the Pens, however Pens did not take them seriously and lost. They thought they could show up and win, they nearly did.
You can take what you want out of the game but history tells us Oilers are one of the worst teams in the NHL.

You're right, my bad. According to Forbes Katz bought the team for $170 mil. Their latest valuation for the franchise is $400 mil. That's 2.35 times more value, not 3 times, sorry about that. Mind you this valuation was done before the Rogers deal was announced, so I'm just going to go ahead and say that a this time this year the Oilers will have indeed tripled (at least) their value as a franchise.
Where did you come up with $600 mil? number a$$-pulling is probably fun, but not accurate.

1 - I never read/listen to negativity re the Oilers
2 - So that eliminates Robin Brownlee, Edmonton Sun and David Staples' articles
3 - I adore my team, have done for 25 years since I came to Canada
4 - In another life I'd have been married to MacT
5 - In this life I am extremely happily married and I am an eternal optimist re my Oilers
6 - And tonight? Sam will break out - again - and we will win
7 - Oh - did I mention I am an eternal optimist?